“Like you’d understand!” Xander shouted. “You, who can’t stay out of trouble. You, who gets into fistfights defending her!” He pointed at me. “And who manages to carry her out of a mine covered in blood. And who rips apart the entire town for fun but then emerges from a burning barn with Willow in your arms. It was all so easy for you to be larger than life! And I did everything I could to be good. That’s what I was supposed to be, but it was never enough. I was never good enough. And you come home a decade later, covered in your army medals, and think you can rescue her again, rescue Dad, now rescue Rose? Hell, rescue this whole damned town!”

The realization that began that day at the courthouse came full circle. It was all about perception for him. He had been so consumed with trying to look like a hero that he forgot to be one.

Cam shook his head and took another step back. “News flash, Xander. I didn’t want any of it. I only wanted her.”

“I just wanted one medal. One moment.”

“I would trade every medal on that uniform to have Sullivan back.”

Xander’s head snapped to the side as a fist slammed into it, but it wasn’t Cam standing above him as he slid against the wall. It was my dad.

Gideon and Tim sprang into action, one cuffing Xander and one cuffing my dad.

“Alexander Daniels, you’re under arrest for arson,” Gideon growled and guided Xander by the neck down the steps.

“Gid!” I shouted, and he looked back. “You might want to take his mic off.”

Xander’s head snapped up to look out over the crowd of a thousand people who’d heard it all go down over the speakers. Gid unsnapped the tiny mic from the front of Xander’s shirt and tossed it to the reporter after nodding his thanks to me.

“I don’t want to do this, Noah,” Tim Hall said quietly. “But the damned cameras are on us.”

“The law is black and white,” Dad answered Tim while he looked at me. “And it was worth it.”

“Noah Bradley, you’re under arrest for assault.” He finished his Miranda rights as Mom trailed after him.

“I’ll get the bail money!”

Cam wrapped his arm around me, and I melted against his chest. “Take me home?”

“Gladly.” He kissed the top of my head.

“I guess we put on quite a show for the tourists,” Dorothy Powers said, her arm looped through Art’s. “Let’s get you home, Arthur.”

Art looked at Cam, and I knew the lucidity he’d had in the mine was fading fast. “The map,” he said quietly.

“It’s framed above Xander’s bed,” Cam explained.